by Ben Cheetham
By the time Angel reached the Tinsley Canal, her clothes clung to her with sweat, and not only because of anxiety and exertion. Withdrawal symptoms were starting to kick in. The towpath was deserted, as she’d expected it to be at that time of night. As a teenager she’d spent many aimless evenings wandering along the canal’s overgrown banks, smoking, drinking and breaking into derelict factory buildings. She kept on at a steady jog, passing industrial barges moored outside the graffiti-tagged walls of silent factories. When the lights of the city centre were well behind her, she slowed to a walk.
Up to that point she’d been focusing on not getting caught, but now she turned her thoughts to where she was going. She needed a place to hole up until at least the following night. But where? She didn’t know anyone in the city who might take her in, except her mum and dad. And she couldn’t exactly go to them. In desperation, she considered phoning her policeman ally. But she quickly rejected the idea. His tone had suggested that he’d already gone way beyond what he was comfortable with. Besides, there was no knowing for sure if Detective Monahan was really on her side. There were some influential – and dangerous – people out there for whom things could suddenly get very uncomfortable if she spilled her guts to the police. It was in their interests to keep her out of the law’s clutches – at least until after they’d got their slimy mitts on her.
As if seeking inspiration, Angel’s gaze skimmed over the canal’s algae-flecked surface. It came to her that there was one place where she could hide out, and what’s more, the canal and the nearby River Don would lead her almost to its door – the flat where Stephen Baxley had kept her hidden.
****
Jim stared into the darkness behind his hand, until Amy shouted into the building, ‘She’s on the move again!’
Like someone emerging from a trance, Jim jerked his head up. On the move? Why the hell is Grace still holding on to the iPhone? Didn’t she believe me? Quickly smoothing the perplexity from his face, he hurried downstairs.
Amy’s eyebrows drew together. ‘What were you doing up there?’
She doesn’t trust me any more, realised Jim. And she’s right not to. ‘Checking to see if anything had been disturbed. Where’s she heading?’
‘West towards Devonshire Green. Where, if you remember, she was seen talking to someone in a grey mac a week before she went missing. Maybe she’s hoping to bump into that same someone.’
I don’t think so. ‘Maybe,’ agreed Jim, the word contradicting the thought.
Amy gestured with her chin at Herbert Winstanley’s office. ‘Find anything interesting?’ Jim told her about the empty secret drawer. She thumbed over her shoulder towards a marked police car. ‘Come on, let’s get back into the hunt.’
As Jim followed Amy, he glanced back at the office building and was hit by the sudden, almost overwhelming feeling that he’d left something of himself behind in there – something irrecoverable.
Jim sat silent in the back seat as a succession of buildings and streets blurred past, half listening to the updates being relayed over the radio – the suspect was now believed to be hiding somewhere in the area of Devonshire Street. He felt strangely detached from the situation, as if he were watching it happen from a long way off. He found himself thinking about Margaret, wondering what she was doing, and who she was doing it with. He had a sudden longing to be with her, to confide in her about what he’d done. A thought, sharp as a razor, stung him back into the moment. What you’ve done is helped a murderer, which makes you an accessory.
Devonshire Street had been blocked off by three police cars, and firearms officers had taken up positions behind them. A couple of ambulances were waiting silently further back. To the right was Devonshire Green, a triangle of grass bisected by several paths. Its wide-open, well-lit expanse offered nowhere for Grace to hide. To the left a row of bustling bars and restaurants stretched towards the even busier Division Street, where more police vehicles had formed a second road-block. Officers were stopping everyone who came along and showing them printouts of the CCTV still of Grace. Garrett, his chest encased in a bullet-proof vest, was talking to the senior firearms officer. As Amy and Jim approached, he nodded a greeting. Jim could barely bring himself to meet his superior’s eyes.
‘What’s the plan, sir?’ asked Amy.
‘It’s a tricky situation. If we go in hard, more innocent people could get killed.’
Innocent! Jim gave a mental snort at the word. A drug dealer and a pair of child molesters, by what reckoning are they innocent? He bit back an urge to spit the question at Garrett.
‘So we’re going to hold back?’
‘For now. This street will be all but deserted in a few hours. Then we can reassess the situation. A negotiator is trying to contact Grace using the number from her mother, but she’s not picking up.’
Anyone who emerged from the bars and restaurants was discreetly directed towards officers waiting to question them at whichever end of the street they were closest to. After fifteen or twenty minutes, word came over the radio that the suspect was moving west. A large group comprising both men and women was approaching the road-block. Jim scanned their faces. Grace wasn’t among them.
‘Where the hell is she?’ Amy wondered aloud. ‘Surely we should be able to see her.’
‘Chief Inspector!’ The shout came from one of the officers stopping and questioning people. Garrett, Amy and Jim hurried over to the officer, who continued, ‘This man thinks he may have seen the suspect.’
‘There’s no may have about it,’ said the man. He tapped the CCTV still. ‘I saw her half an hour ago over near the high street, behind John Lewis. I reckon she must’ve been pissed, ‘cos she almost fell over me.’
The detectives exchanged glances. ‘Would you empty your pockets please, sir,’ said Amy.
The man pulled a wallet, keys and phone from one of his jacket pockets. His eyebrows drew together as he produced another phone from the opposite pocket. ‘This isn’t mine.’
Amy took the phone from him and pressed the standby button. A picture of a smiling young boy and girl, flanked by Amy and a thirty-something man appeared on the screen. She showed it to her colleagues, with a wry glimmer of a smile.
‘In which direction was the woman heading?’ Garrett asked.
‘Towards the high street, as far as I could tell. Can I go now?’
‘Once you’ve given a statement.’ At a signal from Garrett, a uniformed officer ushered the man into the back of a car. The DCI told another officer to relay the information they’d learnt to the search teams, then turned to his detectives. ‘It would seem we’re dealing with a clever girl.’
‘Very clever,’ agreed Amy, casting Jim a frowning sidelong glance. ‘Very clever indeed.’
****
After a couple of miles, Angel came to a place where the canal and the River Don ran parallel to each other, separated by little more than the width of a road. She climbed some steps at the side of a bridge, checked to make sure no one was about, then ran towards the river. She followed the Don’s winding bank into the heart of industrial Attercliffe, passing the grimy hulks of steelworks and occasional pockets of lightly wooded scrubland. Every so often she stopped to scan her surroundings for signs of the police search. But apart from the blinking lights of a helicopter circling above the city centre, there were none.
Several more miles of steady walking brought Angel to a dual-carriageway that crossed the river on a steel-framed bridge. She left behind the solitude of the river bank and made her way along the roadside, keeping to the shadows wherever possible, eyes and ears alert for police cars. The factory-flanked road was almost eerily quiet. It struck her, as it had many times during her previous stay in the area, how strange it felt to be in the middle of a heavily populated city and yet so alone.
She managed to make it to the flat without being seen by any passing motorists. The steel door grated inwards a few centimetres at a time as she heaved her scrawny, exhausted frame against it. Once
the gap was wide enough, she squeezed through and closed the door. The derelict shop’s interior smelt of mildew and old smoke. She sparked her lighter into life, illuminating graffiti-plastered walls and the ashes of a fire containing the half-melted remains of several cider bottles. Someone had clearly been in the building since it was raided. Judging by the bottles, it was probably just kids. She stooped to feel the ashes. Whoever it was, they hadn’t been there for a while. The fire was long dead.
Angel approached a door at the rear of the shop that led to a small square of hallway and a flight of stairs. Something twisted in her stomach. The last time she’d climbed those stairs had been the morning after the night in the Winstanleys’ basement. She’d been out of it on ketamine, but not enough to stop the memory of what had happened from clawing at her. She would soon learn that there was only one drug that could give her that kind of oblivion.
As though her feet were made of lead, Angel climbed the stairs. The door to the flat dangled off one hinge. The doorframe was split from top to bottom. Something scuttled across the floorboards of a hallway with three doors in its left-hand wall and one at its far end. She didn’t flinch or even seem to hear. She advanced towards the first door, her eyes staring hollowly into the past. She saw herself lying on a double bed, with Stephen Baxley thrusting on top of her. She saw herself curled into a tight ball under the duvet, sobbing as if something inside her had been irreparably broken.
Angel opened the door. The bed was gone. There was a mattress on the floor that had been cut to ribbons – no doubt by police searching for drugs. The floorboards had been prised up in several places and a couple of holes had been hammered through the stud wall that separated the bedroom from the bathroom. Angel glanced into the bathroom. The porcelain sink had been smashed. The side of the bath had been levered off. The toilet was intact, but its bowl was brimful of stinking brown water. Next to the bathroom was a tiny kitchen. All the drawers and cupboards were open. The backs of the cupboards had been removed. The linoleum floor and work-surfaces were strewn with broken crockery, pots and pans, and the mould-furred contents of an upturned bin.
The final door, Angel knew, led to a lounge. When she’d lived there the room had been furnished with an old but comfortable brown sofa, a fold-up table with a couple of mismatched chairs, a television and a gas fire. All that remained of the furniture was the sofa, though it had received the same treatment as the mattress. There was a draughty hole in the chimney-breast where the gas fire had been. The green-swirled carpet had been pulled up and flung into a corner. Damp-stained curtains fluttered in a current of air that whistled through a crack in the barred window.
Angel closed the door and wedged the sofa up against it. She turned the cushions over and found that their undersides were intact. She slumped onto the sofa and shut her eyes, letting the silence of the night soothe her ragged nerves. As her sweat began to cool, the dank cold of the room made her shiver. She dragged the carpet over to the sofa and draped it around her shoulders. Then she set about cooking up a hit of Mexican brown. She shot herself up with enough junk to knock her out for the rest of the night. The last thing she saw as she floated off into a chemical haze was Doctor Henry Reeve’s face. Only now, instead of being bloated with arrogance, it was crumpled with fear.
15
Mark awoke with tears in his eyes. The painkillers that the nurses fed him at regular intervals were wearing off. But that wasn’t what had brought tears to his eyes. He’d been dreaming about Charlotte. In his dream, she was standing at the end of his bed, her hair clotted with blood. Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came out, just guttural sounds. Her arms were spread towards him, as if she wanted him to come to her. And there was such an imploring look of sadness in her eyes that he felt it like a physical pain in his chest.
Mark pushed the call button to summon a nurse. ‘I want to see my sister.’
‘I’m not sure that’s possible.’
‘Please, I need to talk to her.’
‘She’s still unconscious.’
‘I know. But I can talk to her, even if she can’t hear.’
‘OK, Mark, I’ll see what I can do.’
Mark’s features twitched with impatience as he waited. The urge to see Charlotte was so strong he was tempted to get out of bed and wander the corridors in search of her. There was nothing to stop him from doing so – there hadn’t been a constable stationed outside his door since forensic evidence had vindicated his story. He resisted the urge, knowing he had little chance of finding her before he was seen and returned to his room.
Eventually the nurse came back. She was accompanied by a policeman, who informed Mark, ‘You’ve been given permission for a brief visit, but I’ll have to go in with you.’
Relief gleamed in Mark’s eyes. The nurse helped him into a pair of slippers and a dressing-gown. ‘Do you need a walking stick?’
Testing his injured leg, Mark found that he could put his weight on it without much pain. ‘No thanks.’
The nurse led him to a room at the opposite end of the ward. A stifled sob escaped his lips at the sight of his sister. Her head was heavily bandaged. A tube snaked out from amongst the bandages, draining fluid into a bag hanging on an IV pole. More tubes and wires ran from her arms and chest to a bewildering array of drip bags and monitors. Her chest rose and fell in time to the rhythmic whoosh and hiss of a machine that breathed for her. Looking at her unrecognisably swollen and bruised face, it was hard to believe there was any life left in her that wasn’t being artificially maintained.
‘I’ll be waiting in the corridor,’ said the nurse, after she’d drawn a chair to the bedside for Mark. ‘Give a shout if you need me.’
Trying his best to ignore the constable standing at his shoulder, Mark took one of Charlotte’s delicate, blue-tinged hands between both of his. For a long moment he just sat and stared at her. Then he closed his eyes and wept. Suddenly, almost savagely, he swiped a hand across his eyes.
More tears threatened to come, but Mark stubbornly held them back. When he trusted himself enough to speak without sobbing, he leant in close to his sister. ‘Charlotte, it’s me. It’s Mark.’ He vainly searched her face for any flicker or twitch that might suggest she’d heard him. ‘Come on, Charlotte. Move something – a finger, an eyelid, anything. Just give me some sign that you can hear me.’ No response. Mark’s lower lip began to tremble. He bit down on it hard.
He sat stroking his sister’s hand until the nurse stepped back into the room and said, ‘Time’s up, Mark.’
‘Please, just give me five more minutes.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t. Doctor’s orders. You’re still very weak yourself. You can see Charlotte again tomorrow.’
‘But what if—’ Mark broke off. What if she doesn’t live that long? That was what he’d been about to say. He shook the words from his head, reluctantly releasing his sister’s hand. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, sis.’ Before standing to leave, he did something he hadn’t done in years – he kissed Charlotte’s cheek and whispered, ‘I love you.’
As soon as Mark was out of the room, the tears pushed their way to the surface again. Between his sobs, he asked, ‘What are her chances?’
‘I’m sorry, love, but I really couldn’t tell you.’ The nurse put her hand on Mark’s elbow, more to support him emotionally than physically. ‘I do know one thing. Your sister’s a fighter. And that’s the best chance she’s got.’
When Mark got back to his room, Doctor Reeve was waiting for him. ‘Hello, Mark,’ said the psychiatrist. ‘It’s good to see you back on your feet.’
‘I’ve been to see my sister.’
The nurse helped Mark into his bed, then pressed a button to raise it into a sitting position. Doctor Reeve waited for her to leave before asking, ‘And how did that make you feel?’
‘How do you think it made me feel?’ There was a defensive edge to Mark’s voice. He was tired of being asked questions.
‘I imagine it made you feel upset, sc
ared, angry and many other unpleasant emotions besides. I have to say I admire your bravery. If I was you, I’m not sure I’d have the strength to see my sister in that condition.’
Mark released a quivering breath that made his shoulders drop. ‘It hurt so much to look at her, but I had to let her know she’s not alone. Do you think she heard me?’
‘It’s impossible to say for sure, but there have been many cases of people who’ve woken from comas claiming to have been conscious of what was going on around them.’
It gave Mark a little lift to think that Charlotte might have heard him. Their relationship had never been an easy one. Charlotte was prone to behaving with the senseless cruelty of a spoiled child. And he wasn’t exactly the easiest person to get close to. But none of that mattered any more. Whatever their differences, they were all each other had left.
Doctor Reeve took out a handheld tape recorder. ‘The police have asked me to tape our sessions,’ he explained, starting the tape-recording. ‘Now, Mark, if you’re feeling up to it, I’d like to delve a bit more deeply into what we talked about last night. Have you had any more dreams?’
‘I dreamt about Charlotte. She was covered in blood.’
Doctor Reeve nodded as though he wasn’t surprised. ‘Did she say anything?’
‘No. She just looked at me as though she wanted me to come to her.’
‘And how about the other dream? Have you had it again?’
‘No, but I will do.’
‘How can you be sure of that?’
‘Because it wasn’t a normal dream.’
‘But, again, how can you be sure of that?’
